Mamata’s Nandigram Incident is Not the First. Here’s What Other Women Politicians Have Faced in the Past

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was hospitalised on Wednesday night with multiple injuries to her left ankle, hip and the region around the collar bone after an attack on her earlier during the day.

According to reports, Mamata’s MRI scan showed a crack in her left foot, and injuries in ligament and soft tissues.

“I was standing on the footboard of the car to greet the crowd when four to five people suddenly slammed the door (of the car). See how my feet have swollen. It’s a conspiracy…. It was deliberate,” Mamata said in Nandigram.

This is not the first time that Mamata Banerjee has sustained injuries due to political reasons. In fact, women politicians in India have historically been facing attacks in a country that has patriarchy running through the veins of almost every profession, especially politics.

Here’s list of previous attacks on female politicians in the country:

– On August 16, 1990, Mamata Banerjee ended up with a fractured skull after Communist Party of India (Marxist) youth wing leader Lalu Alam hit her head with a stick during a rally at Hazra Crossing in Kolkata. Mamata was leading a party rally on that street when CPM workers attacked from all sides. She later fought for her life in hospital for over a month.

– In another ugly incident in 1995, Mayawati was attacked by a group of Samajwadi Party workers who were irked by her withdrawal from the party leading to fall of the SP-BSP government in Uttar Pradesh. The angry party workers attacked her when she was holding a meeting with her party workers at a Lucknow guest house on June 2, 1995. Her room was vandalised and she was allegedly abused and beaten up.

– In March 1989, violence erupted in the Tamil Nadu Assembly between members of the AIADMK party and MLAs of Karunanidhi’s DMK. When Jayalalitha attempted to leave the House, then-minister Durai Murugan reportedly caught hold of her sari and tried to pull it.

– In another incident in October 2008, Jayalalitha alleged a “murderous DMK plot to assassinate” her after the windscreen of her vehicle was damaged in stone pelting by a huge mob gathered at her rally. The trouble arose during her address to a rally on the 101st birth and 46th death anniversary of the late Forward Bloc leader Muthuramalinga Thevar at Pasumpon, a village 500 km south of Chennai.